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I was actually thinking of a weaving project for this month, but when I was browsing the Knitty.com archives looking for inspiration, I ran into the Branching Out scarf pattern in the Spring ’05 issue and fell in love. I have a thing for leaves and vines, and since it’s a springy pattern I decided to make it a little richer and more in the season by using natural camel hand-spun.
I was really hesitant to do a lace pattern in camel at all, the reason is that it doesn’t like holding it’s blocking and I actually use excessive spray starch and a steamer on solid woven fabric made from camel just to get it to behave during sewing– this is why if you are ever a rich and famous jet setter (or just want to look like one) you should have at least one 70% camel dress suit in your wardrobe. Wool dyed to look like camel doesn’t count, you still have to iron it because it’s wool and not camel.
It’s luscious and tasty and I am bursting with maternal pride over this. I chose smaller needles (US #5 instead of the recommended US#8) and as of writing this I finished the 24th repeat of the lace pattern. Instead of working as I usually do from the written instructions, I decided to take a leap and work from the chart, which is really working well for me once I was able to wrap my brain around the concept.
Since camel doesn’t felt on it’s own, I’m going to give it a good boil and brush it gently to give it a little bit of a halo.